Fie has written a text about forgetting yourself and your own pleasure during sex. About The male gaze and about how to answer the question: 'What do you turn on?'
The text is written by Fie.
The illustration was made by Ida Lindbæk.
Five years after my sexual debut, I was asked a question that simultaneously opened up a whole new world for me, while at the same time creating great confusion within me. At the age of 24, I was in bed with a guy who, with a single sentence, made me question my entire relationship with sex. The four words that everyone, whether they know it or not, wants to hear whispered in their ear: "What do you turn on?" Because here I was lying and suddenly became an active participant in my own sex life. Quick in, quick out, slightly forced moaning in the ear and then an ejaculation. My expectation of heteronormative sex can be explained very simply. In retrospect, it's no wonder I've been able to go years without having any kind of sex or intimacy, despite my desires. I went into a kind of winter hibernation until suddenly a small voice sounded in the back of my head, gently approaching me with a, "excuse me, but I am horny for closeness and cock." And yes, then I could get out of the feathers, because the little voice was right. When I think back, there is nothing to say that sex never had a place in my lovely single life. The desire was not lacking, it was just too quickly replaced by disappointment and a feeling of wrongness. Because sex is something you crave, something you enjoy, isn't it? That's how it went until the magic question: "What do you turn on?" set the gears of the brain in motion. Now you can imagine that Christmas lights immediately appeared in the eyes, goosebumps on the arms and that the mouth chattered out of it with every fantasy that had been brewed together in all the sessions with my vibrator. But the words just wouldn't come. I stalled. Because I had never seen myself as part of my own sex life, and that we were two individuals on the bed who were to experience pleasure.
"Sex is good, sex is healthy," are wise words from Søren Brostrøm. I have had both very bad and very unhealthy sex, so I will, even if I do not disagree, be moderate towards Brostrøm's uncritical statement. Because is all sex good, all sex healthy? Sex can be a way to learn more about yourself, and can be a purely meditative act, both with yourself and with a partner. No doubt about it. As long as you are aware that it is not only the limits and desires of others that must be listened to.
There is a problem in that the climax of the act is an ejaculation. I have never before questioned that fact. That I have only seen myself as a tool to give my partner the most possible pleasure. That a man's orgasm is the focal point in sexual relations. That it is an unequal relationship. Because I didn't know it was something that could be questioned. This is what I have learned and what I have seen in popular culture. There is a big difference in the expectations for pleasure in connection with sex, depending on which gender you identify as. This means that you, as a woman, lower your own desires. It's a problem. An even bigger problem is that it is not something we talk about.
I dream of a future where conversation becomes a matter of course in sex life. Where women don't have to go for years before they find out that pleasure and desire are about them too. That it's okay to be a sexual being, and where the question: "What turns you on?" quite naturally goes both ways.
You exist and you have just as much right to take your place in sexual relationships as your partner(s). Let's teach ourselves and others that lust is something we can talk about. Let's be happy and release all the hidden, hidden, unspoken kinks and preferences. Because everyone has the right to pleasure and orgasms, regardless of gender. What an election slogan.
